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COMMANDERY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



WAR PAPER 93. 



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dOMMAWDEI^Y OF THE DI^TI^ICT OF COLUMBIA. 



WAR PAPER 



93 



ELLIS SPEAR, 

Compan on Brevet Brigadier-General, U. S. Volunteers. 

READ AT THE STATED MEETING OF MAY 7, 1913. 



PUBLICATION DIRECTED BY THE LITERARY COMMITTEE UNDER AUTHORITY 
OF ORDER OF THE COMMANDERY. 









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©It? 1^0? (Hakp of Appomattox. 



In considering the unity of that great brotherhood of men who 
composed the armies of the United vStates in the war for sustain- 
ing the government, and perpetuating the form of it made by the 
founders, we have been giving attention to every phase of the 
many common conditions which formed our common experience 
and bound us so firmly together, excepting those of a social and 
physical character. The great and firm basis of this lifelong 
comradeship is, of course, the common devotion and the common 
sacrifice in the service of the country on the existence of which, 
latent in peace but manifest in war, the very existence of every 
government is founded. Tkis common devotion to the service 
of humanity is in the political and social world what the attrac- 
tion of cohesion and the attraction of gravitation are in the phys- 
ical world. We shared alike in that sacrifice and devotion and 
were fortunate in that we were born and reached an age when 
that struggle came on which allowed us to have a share in that 
great action, an epoch in history. We do not envy those born 
since, although we shall die sooner. 

But I think you may properly also consider subordinate con- 
ditions of a physical character as not unworthy of mention and 
not without effect in the comradeship which binds us together. 
We wore common uniform, and in those four years the fashions 
did not change. Each fellow looked like every other fellow. 
The resemblance went even so far as that quality of personal 
appearance which depends upon the use of soap and water, not 
always abundant in those years. We lived for the greater part 
in the same home, the spacious, well ventilated, scantily fur- 
nished and unroofed out-of-doors. We all had the same kind 



of bringing up and education in which "Right face," "Left face," 
and "As you were" were familiar precepts not to be disobeyed 
without reproof or punishment. We were all boys when we 
went into this school, some of such a tender age that we should 
now hesitate to place them in command of a suffragette platoon. 
We were all boys in the same class and at the same school. We 
slept in the same bed, the lap of mother earth, and dined at the 
same table, also usually the lap of mother earth. There was 
a stern and commendable impartiality also in the distribution 
of the fare. Luxuries were unknown, excepting when, through 
scarcity, necessities became a luxury, but we shared alike in 
abundance and want. We could say with slight paraphrase, like 
the three brothers in the song : 

We three brothers be 
In one good cause; 

Tom puffs, 

Bill snuffs, 
And I chaws. 

Of all these common conditions, that of the diet has impressed 
me most. It was called rations, I conjecture, from its irrational 
and unfit nature and painful uniformity. 

Who invented the army ration of 1861 to 1865 is, fortunately 
for his reputation, unknown. He was probably some distin- 
guished commissary, and his works lived after him for many 
years. He should have a monument appropriately placed 
amongst the unknown dead built of some quality of stone most 
nearly approximating hardtack in quality and shape, and sur- 
moimted by a marble block carved in imitation of a himk of 
rusty salt pork. 

In the formative period of enlistment, when we raised com- 
panies and enlisted men no greener than ourselves, I used to 
wonder at that requirement of the army regulations which related 
to the teeth of the recruit. It was explained that a good set of 



teeth were necessary for a recruit on account of the necessity of 
biting the end of the paper cartridge, but for this it appeared 
that only front teeth were required, though the regulations 
included the whole set, and grinders could not be brought into 
play in the operation of biting the cartridges. But when we 
passed out of the region of the recruiting barracks, and the early 
stage of soft bread, and when that wonderful creation of the 
culinary art known as the army cracker appeared, this mystery 
of the requirement of the teeth was fully cleared up. It then 
appeared that the men were selected not for courage or endur- 
ance, which could not be examined into, but for good grinders, 
and the wonder now is that men enough to put down the rebel- 
lion could have been found with teeth equal to the task of putting 
down the army hardtack. 

Did any comrade ever study this article in a geological way? 
It was a solid, there was no doubt about that. It was not a 
stratified rock. It was homogeneous and amorphous, excepting 
when wormy. It did not resemble anything in the vegetable, 
animal or mineral kingdom, excepting brick. It was inflexible, 
inelastic, infrangible, and indigestible, suited neither to the 
stomach nor bowels, and was adapted, except in shape, better as 
armor. 

Indeed, instances have been reported, though perhaps not in 
the official records, where the haversack of a soldier stopped the 
bullet of the enemy, and these perhaps are the only cases where 
it was found that the hardtack saved life. It is well known that 
the army mule would not eat it, and it is another proof of the 
high intelligence of that noble animal, without whose constant 
aid the rebellion never would have been put down. 

I am aware that in making this statement, in which I seem to 
attribute the suppression of the rebellion to the army mule, I am 
infringing the claims subsequently made by certain officers who 
have been talking ever since the war, notably that famous 



quartermaster whose stories led his infant son to inquire ear- 
nestly, "Pa, did anybody help you put down the rebellion?" 

We all helped, in fact, but with the volunteers the first duty 
was to chew, or at least to reduce the ration to chewable condi- 
tion. Soaking in water was tried, but that was too slow. The 
ration of one day needed the soaking of the day before. Do any 
of the companions remember seeing it spluttering in the grease 
of the frying pan? 

But the same genius which invented the hardtack must also 
have invented that other main element of the ration, rusty salt 
pork, an infernal compound of animal fat, with sodium chloride, 
i n which the chloride predominated , a combination of the cheapest 
of minerals with the basest of animals, and rusted by time and 
heat of the climate. 

I speak of coffee respectfully. It was not "Java and Mocha 
Mixed." Do you remember how the men carried it on the 
march? The detachable lining of the haversack furnished the 
bag. The ground coffee and the brown sugar, well mixed, made 
a solid ball held in the bottom under a retaining knot tied in the 
bag itself. A well-battered tin can served as the pot, and in it 
the mixture was boiled until the last percentage of caffeine was 
extracted, and the liquid and solid parts were in equal and uni- 
form mixture. Then came that miracle of simultaneous cooling 
and settling and diluting by a little cool water poured on the top. 
What a fountain of life we drank from that flowing bowl, soothing 
to tired muscles and sore feet. 

It is true that our diet had not always the same monotony. 
At Wapping Heights, in what the men called the "Molasses Gap," 
in July of 1863, we had marched away from these regular rations, 
and our diet was more varied and scanty. The purveyor for my 
mess who had charge of my led horse and the incidental purvey- 
ing captured a lean old duck. A few fragments of beet leaves 
from a trampled garden, and a half handful of cracker dust from 



his inverted haversack, water, the fragments of duck, and no 
salt, the whole imperfectly boiled, was offered for our dinner. 

It was several years before my stomach would accept duck 
again. 

Later in the day we had a handful of blueberries. The next 
day, returning out of the gap, the brigade nearly went to pieces 
in an old blackberry field. Later in the day a lean, wayworn 
steer was sacrificed, speedily dissected, and passed around while 
still warm to be broiled in the smoke. As Dr. Johnson said of 
the beef in the Hebrides, it was "ill-kept, ill-killed, ill-dressed, 
ill-cooked, and ill-served." Too tough for chewing, it could be 
cut small and swallowed. In the night, on picket, there was a 
shower, by advantage of which some of my men stole a hive of 
honey. I ate, in the rage of hunger, I think a couple of pounds, 
comb, grubs and all, and then an oppressive doubt struck me 
that perhaps beeswax was not digestible. But I slept well, 
though wet, after a day in which the fare, scanty but diversified, 
was blueberries, blackberries, tough beef, and honey, served in 
succession. 

But I am rambling. The war ended at Appomattox, in a 
climax, both in a military and dietetic sense. 

The climax of the diet consisted in the fact that, having run 
away from our wagons and the pork and hardtack, for two days 
we had nothing, which fact prepared me for an anticlimax. 

Some relief came later at Appomattox after the surrender, and 
while we were waiting for some final details some of us were 
invited to dine with a family living there. To show that we had 
no hard feeling we accepted the invitation, and consolidated our 
rations. We furnished salt pork and coffee, and the family a 
chicken miraculously spared for the occasion. There were also 
hot biscuits. There was not enough of the consolidated pro- 
visions to go around in full helpings, but the buckles of our belts 
were in the last hole, and, being guests, we restrained our appe- 



tites. The hot biscuits left a good taste in our mouths. Later I 
had a further relief in the commissary line. On the 12th of 
April, 1865, we left the Appomattox House, on a not very hurried 
march back toward Petersburg. There was now no such occa- 
sion for haste as when we came vip, no occasion except for lack of 
rations, and lack of rations discourages haste. Our horses were 
in the same gaunt condition, and showed no tendency to wild 
galloping. It fell to my lot that morning to ride ahead of the 
column with a single orderly, and about noon we came upon a 
solitary negro shanty in the edge of a wood. In the front (and 
only) door stood one of the emancipated. 

Feeling sociably inclined at the sight of a human being unex- 
pected on that road, I accosted her in a friendly way, but omit- 
ted the customary preliminary topic in beginning conversation 
with strangers. The weather was not on my mind, nor the sur- 
render, nor the condition of the country in general, nor of the 
colored race in particular. I went directly to the most important 
matter in the world at that time, and from my point of view. 
Had she anything to eat? Neither the appearance of the house 
nor of the woman had any suggestion of Delmonico's, but that 
did not deter me. I was not expecting terrapin stew or roast 
beef. Such things had passed out of the memory of my stomach, 
though scientific men tell us that the memory of the smells is the 
most acute and permanent of all the senses. I doubt if at that 
time I should have recognized the smell of roast beef had it been 
in the atmosphere. There was a distressing hesitation in the 
old woman's manner, but finally she admitted that she was the 
possessor of a hoe cake. A hoe cake! The discovery of America 
was a less important event (to the orderly and myself), and the 
shout of "Land" no more exciting to the sailors of Columbus 
than the announcement of "Hoe cake" to the followers of Grant 
on that occasion. The woman disappeared for a moment, and 
then produced the goods. It was almost within my grasp. I 



fear the immediate negotiations were precipitate on my part. 
She had a corner in the market. There was no standard of 
prices on hoe cake that we knew of, and doubtless the shrewd 
old mammy understood the situation and our needs. My 
memory is not clear as to the details of the negotiations. In mv 
eagerness to secure the cake the details are obscured bv the 
importance of the result. Whether the price was fixed by the 
woman, or whether I offered all the money I had, is not now 
clear to me. Probably it was the latter. At any rate, the price 
agreed upon was a quarter of a dollar, enough, I have since sur- 
mised, to buy, at that time, a whole bushel of corn. By favor 
of an overruling Providence, and against all probability, I had 
that quarter. It was the extent of my financial assets, and I 
was on the verge of liquidation. But what of that ? The choice 
between starvation and bankruptcy is soon made. In fact it 
made itself. The quarter was, of course, of the shinplaster kind, 
sole currency in those days. It was depreciated in value, as we 
knew to our sorrow, and hoe cake had appreciated. But I paid 
over that quarter, the most important property I ever possessed. 
I justify this statement to incredulous comrades. What might 
have happened in lack of it? It probably saved me from the 
crime of highway robbery, of burglary, or even murder, depending 
upon the obstinacy and resistance on the part of the newly 
emancipated, refusing to surrender the cake without compen- 
sation. But I acquired it honorably, by fair bargain, and at the 
seller's price, although possibly, as it now occurs to me, she may 
have been overawed by the presence of superior armed force. 
But she did not look it, and I dismiss the unworthy surmise. 
vShe had a monopoly and exercised it with moderation, a shining 
though humble example, which, I hope, will make John D., J. P. 
Morgan, and the Armours ashamed of themselves when they 
read this history; and I am proud on my own part to record 
this transaction as a refutation of the groundless charges that 



lO 

soldiers, on both sides, during the Civil War, stole chickens and 
other edible things. 

I fancy that I hear some inquisitive comrade or even a com- 
mon civilian, after all this fuss which I have made about a hoe 
cake, inquiring how large it was. That question cannot . be 
answered so easily. Dimensions are relative, and it will not be 
expected that I measured it accurately. If I inserted that detail 
it would, to an unfriendly critic (and there are such among the 
common civilians above mentioned and sometimes among old 
soldiers), it would, I say, give an air of improbability to the whole 
story. This I desire to avoid, for I have in mind the incredulous 
reception of another story, told by some comrade, in which he 
represents himself as lying, on a winter's night, on a blood-soaked 
field of battle (apparently the sole survivor) , and protecting him- 
self from the cold, by dead bodies, one on each side and another at 
his head; and I do not propose, in this history, to give comrades 
or others occasion to quote to me the insinuating remark, "Tell 
that to the marines." 

But to recur to the hoe cake, from which I have so widely and 
unwarrantedly digressed. As I have said, dimensions are rela- 
tive. To me, at that time, it appeared larger than the rising 
moon, distorted and enlarged by the evening mists, or, not to 
seem too poetic, as large as the fifth wheel of a battery as it 
appears stuck on behind. 

I do not wish to exaggerate, but only to express adequately 
the importance of the ancient corn product on this occasion, and 
as it looms up in my memory. To any inquiring mind still 
unsatisfied it may be said that subsequent observations, made 
under circumstances more favorable to accurate measurement, 
lead me to believe that the cake aforesaid was about eight inches 
in diameter, and an inch and a half thick. 

Still I do not hold to these subsequent observations and reflec- 
tions. That hoe cake remains, in the memory of my early life, 



II 

as the rising moon in the cast, while I now, alas! am tending low 
down in the west. 

But there is another and to me still more important circum- 
stance connected with this affair, affecting my subsequent his- 
tory and moral character, and only as a most confidential com- 
munication to my companions of the war do I write it down as a 
turning point in my history. 

I was never before under such moral strain or under anything 
approximating such strain, except once, somewhere about the 
region of Spottsylvania, C. H., when, after a prolonged diet of 
dirt, salt pork, fried or raw, and hardtack, a brother officer lent 
me his canteen just brought up from the rear filled with a rich 
soup. I did not drink (as I afterwards feared) all I properly 
might; but then he stood before me with a watchful eye. Here I 
was in full control of the situation. I am proud to say that even 
at that late stage in the war I had such moral sense remaining as 
to property and particularly as to hospitality, and I shared with 
the orderly, probably as hungry as I. But how did I divide? 
Equally, notwithstanding the disparity of rank and the fact of 
possession. My good angel must have been with me. Spite of 
the clamors of a beastly appetite, and although the cake was 
round, I broke it on the square. 

Success in that severe trial has rendered it easier, in all these 
subsequent years, to divide fairly with my fellow man. Perhaps 
I have not always done it, but when it has fallen to my lot to cut 
a pie I have remembered that hoe cake. 

As to the eating, I did not observe the orderly. I was too busy 
with my half. It is safe to assume that he ate his. Of course no 
drink offering accompanied the cake. It was sheer grinding and 
mastication, but the flavor developed can be understood only by 
one who has exercised the process, under like conditions, to wit: 
hunger and the hoe cake. It brought out the ethereal sweetness 
of the Indian corn, a flavor as of sunshine and mother earth, of 



12 



the neighborhood of oak and pine and sassafras and wild flowers, 
combined in the subtle chemistry of nature. I Fletcherized 
before Fletcher, and looked regretfully on the last fragment. I 
learned, too, that important lesson that the pleasure of eating 
depends more on the appetite than upon the diet. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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